In Case You Missed It: Extreme Madison Liberal Paul Soglin Out of Touch with Wisconsin

Nearly half a century of support for radical agenda of higher taxes, more government

[Madison, WI] — Extreme Madison liberal Paul Soglin has a radical past. After nearly half a century spent pushing his extreme left-wing agenda – embracing higher taxes and more government – Soglin is too out of touch with hard-working Wisconsin families to be governor.

Check out the latest from Christian Schneider of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel online here or find excerpts below

When making the announcement last week that he would be running for governor, Madison Mayor Paul Soglin waxed poetic about the state’s dairy industry, the growth of the university and public education, and the “advent of electricity” in Wisconsin. Soglin said he would be running a “supper club campaign” to unseat Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

Clearly, Soglin thinks he’s the right man for the right time. But given his record, it is unclear whether that time is 2018 or 1918.

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Soglin has frequently boasted of his ability to create jobs in Madison, but his city has always had a built-in advantage; it is the home of both state government and Wisconsin’s largest university, both of which aren’t scheduled to go out of business anytime soon.

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In fact, Madison has grown quickly in large part due to the largesse of health care software giant Epic Systems, a company for which Soglin once worked. It’s the same type of private sector expansion Walker is banking on by luring Foxconn to Wisconsin, a move Soglin has criticized as a “terrible deal.” Yet just months ago, Soglin was begging Foxconn to take a nearly 100-year old hot dog factory off his hands when Oscar Mayer moved out of Madison. (Unfortunately for Soglin, he wasn’t able to convince the electronics company that encased meats were the future.)

Of course, the spiciest issue of the campaign so far has been Walker’s ridicule of Soglin for presenting Fidel Castro with a key to the City of Madison. This is entirely fair shot at Soglin — even after Castro’s death, the Madison mayor remembered the murderous Cuban dictator as “a popular leader who inspired generations of Cubans.”

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But Soglin is notoriously fighting modernity, cracking down on modern conveniences like Uber and e-cigarettes. Even the Journal Sentinel’s progressive columnist Emily Mills has called him an “out-of-touch curmudgeon,” and a “cranky aging Boomer who refuses to give up his position and power.”